Commercial, corporate and M&a: St Petersburg and elsewhere

Capital Legal ServicesÂ is distinguished by its â€˜practical and flexible client-focused approachâ€™,Â â€˜taking into account all the specific circumstances of the matterâ€™. The department is led byÂ Dmitry Churin, who â€˜is deeply involved in all aspectsâ€™ and â€˜sets out recommendations to include all the fine points in a very organised, clear and convincing mannerâ€™. Highlights included advising Perm Concession Company on corporate issues and shareholders agreements concerning a major transportation project in Perm. Pavel KarpuninÂ has extensive expertise in investments and acquisitions made by foreign entities. Managing partner Vladislav ZabrodinÂ is also of note.

Dispute resolution: Litigation

PPP and infrastructure projects

The â€˜highly creative and responsiveâ€™ team at Capital Legal ServicesÂ provides 'value for money'Â and is particularly active in regional transport and healthcare projects where it demonstrates â€˜in-depth expertise of Russian law and industry practicesâ€™. Project finance expert Pavel KarpuninÂ advises the Sibirskaya Concession on a concession agreement for the construction and operation of a toll bridge across the Ob River in Novosibirsk. He also advised the City of St Petersburg on the first healthcare PPP agreement for the construction of a hospital and rehabilitation facility. Dmitry RaevÂ â€˜demonstrates the perfect combination of creativity and outstanding quality of expertise with a hands-on approachâ€™ and works alongside Karpunin in handling large-scale investment and infrastructure projects.

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (Russia) LLP is acting for Skolkovo resident OOO Double in a dispute with VKontakte over the Clientâ€™s use of public data from the social network in a search engine manner. The Double Data software involved was developed by our Client on the basis of its own big data search, storage and mining methods and algorithms.

One of the biggest and most popular Internet companies, LinkedIn, has become the first target of the recent Russian data localization law. The legislation requires businesses operating online to keep Russian Internet usersâ€™ data on servers located within Russia. Read more...

The
Federal Tax Service of Russia issued Letter â„– CA-4-7/ 6152 @ of 16.08.2017, in
which it clarified to its subordinate tax authorities the application of new Art.
54.1 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation "Limits on the Exercise of
Rights in Calculating the Tax Base and (or) the Amount of Tax, Levy, Insurance
Contributions", which was included in the Tax Code of the Russian Federation
by Federal Law â„– 163-FZ of 18.07.2017.

At
the present time, in various legal relationships there exists the acute problem
of observing a balance of interests concerning the parties involved in these
legal relationships, their legal rights, and their mutual economic needs.
Judicial practice, when considering disputes between these kinds of parties,
takes into consideration not only the formal requirements of legislation, but
also the real economic and legal goals and interests of the participants.

It is well known that before making significant managerial decisions, the general
director must obtain approval from the shareholders or the board of directors.
Apart from that, if a director is personally interested in entering into a
transaction, approval is also required to proceed with the transaction. In the
absence of such an approval, the transaction can be challenged and, in certain
circumstances, invalidated. In order to minimize such risks and to eliminate
legal uncertainty for the parties to the transaction, the rules governing major
transactions and interested transactions must be sufficiently clear.
Previously, however, the application of these rules was associated with a large
number of controversial legal issues, which were finally solved as a result of
the legislative amendments, which will enter into force on January 1, 2017.
According to the new amendments, the distinction between major and non-major
transactions has been delineated more clearly, parties have been allowed more
flexibility in relation to approving transactions, the burdensome obligation to
obtain prior approval of interested transactions has been abrogated, and
finally the procedure for challenging transactions in question has been made
much more complex. Overall, the changes should have a positive influence on
business, as they contribute to the establishment of firm legal certainty in
this area of the law.Â

The rent for leases, especially those in downtown Moscow and other large cities, is often based on the foreign currency exchange rate, which has recently increased almost threefold. Many businesses have been taken aback by this consequence of the economic crisis. Some of them have been put on verge of bankruptcy because of the increased rent and were forced to seek remedies in courts.